


Willow's Stories

by nandroidtales



Category: Emmy The Robot (Webcomic)
Genre: Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:14:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29607888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nandroidtales/pseuds/nandroidtales
Summary: Hello! This'll be my one of my two new stories for the present time, "Willow's Stories". I'm gonna be doing things a bit differently, like keeping all the new parts in one neat paste so I won't be spamming my page with new "Sally's Story: blahblah" and whatnot. There'll be chapter titles (songs, like last time, but I'll include the link above the chapter should you want to check it out) with a number written out. So when a new part is dropped just ctrl+f "One -" or "Two -" and it'll take you there! Just make sure you include the space and the hyphen, and if you're on AO3 don't worry about it! Thanks again for reading, it really means a lot to me! Enjoy!
Kudos: 5





	1. The Letter

https://youtu.be/pyq3PUTnpd0 - (The Box Tops - The Letter)

Mechanical alarms chimed in the little lady’s head- time to wake up. Stretching and yawning she stepped out of the narrow charging locker put aside for her, taking care not to wake the other slumbering robots in her row. Hopping into her boots and strapping her bulky flight helmet on she started the short march to muster, ready to get to work. The air was still hot and dense as always. The soldiers hated it, her crewmates hated it, but to her it was home. Home for the past three years, she reminded herself, even if it was hell on her joints. Knuckles rapped on the metal locker, twisting the robot around to see her crew chief standing, waiting.  
“Willow, papers for you.” Her yearly service renewal- evidently Jordan was still in school. She snatched up the narrow envelope, splitting it apart with her lithe fingers. Eyes reading it once and again she paused, frowning.  
“My term’s up, sir?”  
“Yep. Plane’ll be here in the afternoon.” He patted her shoulder, trying to work a smile for the robot. “Get your things, Willow. We'll be fine out there, okay? So chin up, you're goin' home.”  
“Yes sir, will do,” she sighed. The man paced away to join the crew, the rhythmic ‘thwop’ of helicopters helping to wake up the base. Breathing again she returned to her diminutive cubby-hole, fishing along the walls and pulling down her meager belongings- faded polaroids, cards and letters she received before they dried up, random souvenirs she’d collected for the boys and the odd medal, too. Piling them in her little canvas bag and leaving to return her other things to the quartermaster, she took her uniform in hand and slung it over her back. And then she sat, and she waited. There’d be a hulking cargo plane touching down, dozens of others marching inside for a bank shot off the Philippines home. It was an act that played out daily but she never saw herself performing in. Cracking a weak smile from flipping through photos she prayed to see the boys again, to see how they’d grown. A thundering growl came overhead, a herculean plane touching down on the runway and coming to a stop.  
“Time to go,” she frowned, thoughts racing. “They didn’t come to say goodbye.” The pitched drumbeat of helicopter blades reminded her that her crewmates were on the clock, racing out over the canopy to answer the call for aid. Picking up her sparse belongings she stepped away and out to the tarmac with the dozens of other dischargees, her flight home a far cry from the wooden crate she’d been shipped there in. Settling into her seat, a quartet of flight nurses guided litters to the front of the plane. It was too familiar a sight for the trip home, the robot shutting it out as the plane’s turbines grumbled to life. Letting the shuddering of the plane sway her gently, she flipped into sleep-mode like so many nights before, dreaming of the golden Pacific shore she’d come home to soon enough. Recollections and flashes of memory filled her head, for once not occupied by who’d lived and who’d died that day or where they’d flown into, but by Christmas mornings with the boys, making dinner, San Francisco. It was a simple hop from one plane to another in Manila and she was homeward bound, jostled awake by touchdown in California.

Routed to processing, given her papers, and unleashed on an indifferent world she stepped into the free air, an ocean away from the war. Pacing up and down in the airport she searched for her family, expecting them to be there waiting on her, hopefully getting a heads up in advance. Nowhere to be found she idled, unsure of what to do, routines for this instance failing in the anxiety of her return, the shock of being dumped back into America after so long away. Her neighbors from the plane had already disappeared and left her swimming uselessly in the flocks of commercial air passengers. Breathing again, defeated, she jingled the loose change she’d gathered up in her pocket. Pacing over to the phone she dialed in on her residence, the line ringing continuously to no effect. Hanging the handset up she counted out what she had left- just enough for the bus.  
Dropping what coins she had left in the change box she took her seat, deflated canvas bag lying dead in her lap. She was spared the spitting, jeering and insults she’d read about in some of the periodicals, but not the stares. She was just a robot, after all, not like she knew any better. Head leaning on the glass as the sun edged down again, she watched the city of San Francisco glow and twinkle in the growing dusk, the drive out to her little neighborhood just enough time to reminisce and to imagine her reunion with the Willows. Stepping off the bus in her neighborhood she started the uphill hike to the thin little townhouse that her family had called home since before the war. The pressure of watching eyes held her back, window-born observers curiously eyeing the little robot now knocking on the front door of that home.  
She thumped once, and then again, harder. Looking around she didn’t see the family’s station wagon, understanding that they were probably out late, spending the night on the town. No matter, she could wait. Sitting down on the brick step and laying her tubular bag by the door, she watched the last whisper of sunlight disappear behind the rooftops and into the ocean beyond them. Cool air drifted through her long hair, the robot glad to put this behind her. Home felt different, now- the ground was firmer, *cleaner*, but it was fake, fictional. The glimmering of the Winter stars overhead was alien, the unfamiliar constellations piercing the pollutive city light were ancient and unknown to her. But staring around at the scattered windows, lit and dark, she didn’t have to eye them for hostile fire now, she didn’t need to know where not to go in the city, she could breath easier. All she needed was her brick stoop and her family to pull to the curb in that wood-paneled wagon.


	2. Further Reflections

https://youtu.be/UbF4yslRhy4 (Kaleidoscope - [Further Reflections] In The Room of Percussion)

“That’s it?”  
“That’s it.” The robot puffed at her cigarette, smoke uselessly inhaled then exhaled, unabsorbed, into the already cloudy air. A habit from the war. “Not every homecoming story is hugs and kisses.”  
“I mean, that’s absurd, three years away and they’re just gone?”  
“It’s not absurd, it’s life,” she shrugged. “It’s not like I *blame* them or anything, people move on. And who wants a robot around that’d been through that? She’d be unpredictable, unsafe, unfit for duty-”  
“Violent.”  
“Yeah, exactly. Not like they knew what I was doing, or cared.” She nursed her dying cigarette, curls of smoke bleeding away. She struck up another.  
“If people did, do you think they’d treat you differently? Treat the war differently?”  
“I dunno, doubt it. Too much bad to make the good look, *feel*, good.”  
“Well, maybe it doesn’t need to be ‘good’? Maybe people just need to see it as it is, know what you went through. At least, that’s what I’m trying here,” he prodded.  
“And why would people want that?” Her mouth wrinkled in anger and regret, brow following it in a furrow. “Just reminds them of how fucked things were, *are*.”  
“How do you think your family would react then? Had they stayed.” She clenched her other hand, taking a breath to collect herself.  
“How did America react, as a whole?” She looked him up and down. “You’re too young to remember anyways, but that’s the question you should be asking. I’m just one robot, they’re one family. Ask the country.”  
“Well that’s the answer I’m working on, but it takes all sorts of pieces. And it takes your perspective, too.”  
“I’m a robot hun, not much perspective up here.” She tapped her head with her other hand, a trail of smoke zigzagging after it. “I had a job that I was sent to do, and I did it. Not much else.”  
“Okay, but how about *why* you were sent? Why you came back, what that was like, given, er, *changes*.”  
“I already told you what it was like coming home- I waited and they never came.”  
“But could you tell me more? Did you go looking for your family? And what came before that, what were those three years like?”  
“You’ve gotta lot of questions for someone ‘just dropping in’, huh?”  
“Oh, shoot,” he jumped, checking his watch and tapping it nervously. “Hey, uh- it’s getting late, but can I meet you again? For more questions?” The nandroid chuckled, stabbing another butt into the crowded ashtray.  
“Didn’t know you were into that, hun...” she giggled. The young man was fumbling over his words, cheeks peeking red as he backtracked desperately. “Hey, I’m kidding- I’d be glad to. Means a lot for someone to take interest, I guess. You seem willing enough to listen.” She eyed the dense legal pad waiting in front of him, notes and quotes scrawled across its yellow surface.  
“O-Oh, heh, right. Is there a good place to meet you? A good time?”  
“Any, really, but here’s just a nighttime thing. Usually I’m at home.” Nabbing the little notepad from in front of him she jotted down her address, something she was still unused to a decade on. Slipping away with a handshake and a wave the young man departed the cozy bar, head dragging a path through the gray fog that filled it. Straightening his glasses he paced up the block to the bus stop, intent on poring over his notes in the privacy of his dorm.

The junior-year journalism student hadn’t grown up with the war, only its direct aftermath. Hushed conversations or television reports from the living room which he’d been escorted away from, or classroom discussions about a conflict without meaningful context. There was the striking memory of a teacher leaving class early for the office and a weeks-long absence, or the brother of a neighbor missing from street-hockey games for a year, but nothing more. Once he got to university, though, the understanding came along, and curiosity with it. A stain had loomed over the country for years, one generation’s mistake forced into the hands of the next to deal with and understand. Writing for his school paper on the subject he’d worked extensively to speak and interview the discarded, living remnants of that war to find their own reckoning with it, and maybe build one for others along the way.  
It was after a string of these small, one-time discussions that a professor pointed him in another direction. The even less acknowledged war-remainders, the thousands of robotic participants who’d shaped the anti-war movement at home into another battle against the ruthless military industrial complex and the imperialist-capitalist tendencies of the American presidents perpetrating it. At least that’s what they said it was about when people caught sight of robots on the nightly news hiking through jungle trails and torching hamlets. Flipping through his notes he took stock of the evening, randomly happening on the nandroid by chance as he was nursing a headache with alcohol at one of the collegetown bars, the odd bit of militaria or crew photo clue enough. She’d introduced herself as Willow, raising more questions, but she seemed willing to talk about the war, following along his repeated line of questions about what coming home was like. Flipping to the next page he reviewed the tail end of that story, seeing something different about her perspective, something worth following up on. Dropping the pad in his backpack he reclined into the musty, fuzzy seat, wondering aloud what to ask her tomorrow night.


	3. San Francisco

https://youtu.be/LAX5GgvS-8s (Scott McKenzie - San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers In Your Hair))

“Timothy! Be careful,” the voice called up the hill. “You know your father doesn’t like you being in this neighborhood!”  
“Whitney, I’ll be fine,” the teen groaned. Usually he’d be out here on his lonesome but due to ‘recent visitors’ the nandroid tagged along. Taking one last breath before his plunge he kicked off, the clack of his spokes quickening as he raced down the hill. Wind whipped at his trim hair, the air desperately trying and failing to push the boy backwards, to slow his inexorable descent. “MACH ONE!!!!”  
Shouting he clipped past the halfway point, speed still building. Hands itching for the brake he applied gentle pressure, barreling faster and faster still towards the anxious robot. The half-squeeze did little if anything, the growing velocity only forcing him to press harder and harder on the brake. He was near the bottom now, the gentle slope into an intersection seconds away. He had to do it. Clamping a hand on the rear brake to no avail he tried for the front, the friction bucking him from his bicycle seat and forward. He’d slowed just enough, tumbling to a stop at Whitney’s feet, the nandroid agape in shock.   
“Timothy,” she shrieked, “Timothy!”  
“Mach two,” he sputtered, biting back a whimper and a wail. Can’t look like a pussy in public, he silently reminded himself. The maidbot was frantically looking him up and down for any grievous injuries while blaming herself for even letting him be so reckless in the first place, not even bothering to check his brakes herself nor finding a shallower hill. So stupid- stupid, stupid, stupid. Mercifully he was spared anything broken, but his forearms were cut and scraped all over the place. Blood oozed forth slowly with some dripping down his arm to the concrete below.  
“Oh Timothy, we have to get you to a doctor, come on,” she screamed, yanking the boy up and away from the toppled bicycle. Scanning around her memory of the neighborhood she knew the nearest clinic was *that one*. She’d been forbidden from bringing the kids anywhere near such places, but her duty to care was kicking her in the rear across the street and towards the dinky, free clinic. She sighed again, expecting the worst. Stepping through the slim wooden door there was no rampant stench of reefer, no ignoble druggie accosting her the moment she stepped in. Just conspicuously long haired people waiting to see a doctor.   
Settling in, anxious at the odd eye spying her, Whitney held Timothy close. It was quick and painless (for her), in and out. As quick as he’d flown from his bike they patched him up, dressed his cuts and sent him out- all free of charge. Still wary of the counterculture types she’d been warned about in class, as well as by the Mister, she ushered Timothy out posthaste, a nod and a wave the only donation offered to the humble doctors there. There would be hell to pay when they got home, not just letting Timmy be hurt but taking him anywhere around the Haight for help. But, seeing him pick up his bike, impishly tapping at his bandages, she knew they couldn’t be as bad as the Mister was making it out to be.

“And *that*,” she declared triumphantly. “Was my first experience with hippies. Good people, I figured, but the programming at the time suggested otherwise. *The Mister* too.” She rolled her eyes.  
“And this was during the Summer?”  
“Summer of Love, baby.” She tossed her hair back, chuckling. It was nice to talk about things outside of the war. “Man, you wouldn’t imagine how… *angry*, just genuinely *mad* John was.” There was a pang to that name, an echoing reminder of her abandonment. But it was impossible not to laugh at either, the name conjuring the spitting image of uptight, prudish, right-wing America, Nixon and Reagan’s America.  
“Tell me about it.”  
“The hippies, or his takes on them?”  
“Either, go for it.”  
“Simple enough- he was a conservative guy, served in Korea, never spoke about it, quick to get angry and hell on Earth when he was.”  
“Sounds nightmarish.”  
“Sometimes, a very rare sometimes. Outside of those times he was a delight: soft spoken, intelligent, and very, very professional. If you wanted someone who was a good example of what people were calling ‘America’ he’d be it.”  
“Seems like a nice enough family.”  
“Oh absolutely, I mean- they were nice people and normal enough, just less-than-slightly right of center. Good for a nandroid, I suppose, but not good for San Francisco.”  
“You think that’s part of why they left?” She took a moment, stirring in her head and squeezing her eyes.  
“Maybe? I didn’t keep up with the state of the city, *couldn’t* rather, so it’s not like I know all the reasons. It’d make more sense though with what I heard about it in the 70s. I left pretty much as soon as I returned.”  
“And what brought you to Arlington then?”  
“That’s… that’s for later.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Right, hippies! John was sick of them, and come Summer it was getting to its climax. I remember one of the posters for the be-in flew onto our street and he almost strangled a neighbor thinking he’d posted it.”  
“Be-in?”  
“Proto-Woodstock, don’t worry about it. But he was mad as hell, and these long-haired weirdos were everywhere, and,” she stopped to hold back a giggle. “And then they played that damn song on the radio, practically the theme song for these flower-children waltzing around town.”  
“Then what?”  
“Radio was in the backyard in about ten seconds, hammer smashing it in five. It was one of the tamer smashings, all things considered, he even apologized to Elizabeth for breaking it. Grounded her for letting the song play, though.”  
“Sounds like a fun time to be in San Francisco.”  
“Fun enough, and even John had a sense of humor about the ordeal as it dragged on.”  
“How about the rest of the family?”  
“Oh! I guess I haven’t really told you much about them, sorry.” She sniffed, no cigarette to retreat to. “The Missus, Elena, was a delight and Elizabeth, the youngest, took after her. Then there’s Jordan, the oldest, and Timothy, who you know about.”  
“Jordan being the oldest I assume you were the least close?” She meandered on the question, checking the locks on a few tells before continuing.  
“Not especially, no. He was very businesslike, analytical. A lot like his father, and he was in college at the time.”  
“If he was in college why’d you end up going overseas then?”  
“Because he wasn’t keeping his grades up.”


	4. Draft Morning

https://youtu.be/1ancCWvjm80 (The Byrds - Draft Morning)

“And a draft notice came?”  
“Yep,” she sighed. The recollection of the thick letter was scorched into her memory, even more so the adjunctory packet with it. “At the time robots had to be registered, keep a paper trail on robots should the need arise.”  
“I’ve read about this the-”  
“Alternative Service scheme, just an out for the rich to keep their kids at home. Have a robot? Send them instead, get a deferment. Renew that and keep the deferment, and so on and so on,” she sneered. There was a bite at the edge of her voice now, a growing distaste jumping and nipping at the young man opposite her. He should be careful not to crack the verbal eggshells she’s thrown around him.  
“How did the family take it when the notice arrived?”  
“Horribly, the missus was in hysterics over it, begging John not to send him. He’d always had the idea in the back of his head that service would be good for him but not then, not in Vietnam. Timothy took it about as well as one could expect, worried for his brother, and they chose not to tell Elizabeth.”  
“And how’d they come to the decision to send you?”  
“Elena managed to convince him, reading and rereading the damn thing for hours. She got it in her head that robots of my class-”  
“Meaning?”  
“Sorry, domestic servants, nandroids among them, fell into the bracket of ‘non-combatant overseas service’, followed by a long string of letters and numbers and other garbage. Essentially it said I’d be doing medical work since we’re designed for first aid and such. John was convinced enough that I’d come back fine and Jordan could stay home fine, no honor lost.”  
“When did they tell you? That you’d be going, I mean.”  
“Day of- and I accepted it right away. My chief concern was the family, it was in my blood. So when they said they were okay with me being gone a spell, I gladly volunteered for it. Not like I had a choice, in retrospect. Elizabeth was too young to really know what was going on, so she just thought I’d be taking a long vacation.”  
“And Timothy?” She paused for a breath.  
“Hysterical, genuinely. Even now I’m surprised at it, I mean,” she half-chuckled, trying to lighten the moment, “I mean he was just nuts about it, he had *me* worried. I guess part of that is he grew up with me the most, unlike the others. Elizabeth wasn’t even born when the family got me, Jordan was too old to really need me. So for a while it was me and Tim.”  
“It must’ve been tough for him to see you go.”  
“That’s an understatement. I remember there were a few days before I had to go for muster, and the Mister’d be driving me to the bus stop soon enough for that.” The blocky tape recorder he’d brought for this visit churned silently.  
“Understatement? How?”

“Whitney, they can’t make you go,” the boy screamed. “It’s not right!”  
“Timothy, please,” the robot snapped. She was getting tired of this, the boy trying to block her from packing her meager belongings: her papers, the odd knick knack, a few photos. “I’m okay with going if it means your brother can stay. Remember, I’ll be going and serving like a soldier.” She patted his shoulder, trying to pry him from the door to her charging closet.  
“That’s not true! My teacher says it isn’t like that!”  
“Well *your teacher* doesn’t know what he’s talking about, I’m going so your brother can stay,” she glared. “I’d do the same for you, now *please* let me get my things.”   
“I… won’t… let you,” he grunted, budging her back.  
“Fine, I’ll just get your Father to let me in. I made my decision Tim, I mean, this is ridiculous!” The threat forced him to pause, the boy rushing down the hall to his room.  
“Finally,” she thought, exasperated. Maybe that bicycle accident had done more than she initially worried, not to mention the trip to that clinic. Ruffling through her sparse things and scooping them into a spare pillowcase she tried to arrest her annoyance, the audacity of the boy churning in her head. She was touched, really, at wanting her not to go but this was excessive.  
“Whitney,” he whispered, tapping her shoulder.  
“What now,” she groaned, turning around. Her patience was run thin enough, and now he was skating overtop it. The boy stood over her, heart pounding out an agonized drumbeat as the robot turned around. The little sack swished against him, a gentle ruffle coming from inside. He snatched the narrow cloth, yanking it from her grip with his nostrils flaring.  
“If you’re not gonna listen to me, I’m gonna give you a choice.” He pulled out several large bills and a fistful of change, dumping them in the sack and thrusting it back into her hands. “I know enough to say they’re not gonna pay you-”  
“Why would I need to be paid? Service to the country, and to keep your brother home, is payment enough,” she huffed. “Now take-”  
“No,” he shouted. “No, keep the money. Here’s your choice- you either buy yourself a ticket to Canada at that bus stop and leave, or if you insist on going there, you buy yourself paper or something and write us.” She blinked at him, the manic breathing and white-tight knuckles fading as he handed the bag back. His eyes were misting, tender as he looked down at the robot who’d watched him grow up that tall, the broad blue saucers blinking back at him in mournful understanding.  
“Timothy, it’s okay to miss me, but,” she paused, heart breaking, “but it’s just not okay to act like this. It’ll only be a year! Now come, I’d like the whole family to be there to see me off.” Nodding he followed after the robot, guiding her down the stairs and to the waiting family gathered to see her off. Jordan was absent, off in classes or unseen, John working the key around in his hand.  
“Ready to go,” he asked, failing to conceal the note of concern touching his voice.   
“Actually, Dad, is it alright if I drive Whitney?” He stopped, eyes blinking in thought.  
“I… don’t see why not? Sure,” he tossed the keys, Timothy yanking them from the air. The family offered their somber goodbyes, Elizabeth proffering a crude little crayon sketch as a token to remember her by, her middle brother escorting the robot to the car after their hugs and farewells. Pulling into the bus depot he turned to her once again.  
“And you’re sure, a hundred percent-”  
“Timothy,” she scolded. “For the last time it’s not a big deal! It’s only one year, surely you can survive without me for that long!”  
“I- Okay, Whitney,” he conceded. His hands grasped and squeezed the leather steering wheel, knuckles white again. “Just… be safe and please, please write. If not for me for Elizabeth, okay? You may not see it yet but she’s gonna be broken up about you going.”  
“I will, Tim, I will. I’m gonna miss every one of you.” One last regulation squeeze and she disappeared into the bustling bus depot, making way for her scheduled ride far off to Texas, away and across the country to her assignment.


	5. Just Another Soldier

https://youtu.be/69hxiO_1_6A (The Staple Singers - I'm Just Another Soldier)

“Had you ever been that far from San Francisco? From California?”  
“Not often, no. Though there was this one trip but that’s a story for another time. Suffice to say the Willows had a sizeable extended family in Louisiana and…” She stopped herself from falling off into another tangent, chuckling a bit. “But no, and Texas was a far cry from California.”  
“Understatement of the decade there,” the man laughed.  
“Century more like. John would’ve fit in better there, the west coast was too liberal for his taste but it was where work was,” she shrugged. “All-in-all Texas was nice, showing up to muster for the first time was just as fine.”  
“Must’ve been… *alien* to a nandroid though- the regimentation, the order and whatnot.”  
“Well, living in the Willow household was a whiff of that, though nothing as extreme. And for someone programmed for that stuff it was shocking, sure, but completely acceptable.”  
“Shocking how?”  
“In the sense of ‘Wow, new clothes after six years of a blue dress’. Stuff like that. Being told to tie my hair back, losing the only clothes I’d had for years for awfully uncomfortable fatigues, that kind of shocking. It was stepping into a new reality, the idea that I’d be leaving the States for a long time.”  
“I assume basic did little to help that culture shock?”  
“Well, it wasn’t as bad as you’d expect, for a maid robot at least. Like, because we weren’t supposed to go into combat, they skimped on teaching us to handle weapons. That was a relief, at the time at least. What else…”  
“Then what did they teach you in basic?”  
“Oh! Well, nandroids and other robots ‘like me’ were fast-tracked into medical training. Built with an understanding of first aid we were taught to handle more *gruesome* injuries, scary stuff for a robot.”  
“You ever get used to it?”  
“The hell kind of question is that? For a robot still programmed to scream at the slightest hint of blood there’s no ‘getting used to it’, not when it’s fake. I mean, they’d drill us on triage and emergency aid and whatnot, and they’d have these poor grunts all done up like they’re dying,” she laughed, “and we’d panic and try and comfort them instead of dressing their ‘wounds’. Like that.” The young man couldn’t help but giggle at the imagery, flurries of maid robots hustling around base grounds in a frenzy instead of treating their patients.  
“That ever wear off?”  
“Yeah, kinda. One of the tweaks they had Sterling reps do on-post was increase adaptability, lower certain sensitivities. Made us more ‘stoic’, that’s the best way to put it. Not deadpan by any means, but we could focus better on doing our jobs. Not like they knew how that’d turn out.”  
“Sorry?”  
“Later, later. Bottom line is they had a bunch of robots together of all kinds, taught to do new jobs. Half of our training was watching and re-watching this movie about field aid and the whole medical process. Maybe not *half*,” she smirked, “but they really hammered it into our heads what we’d be doing. ‘You’re going to see people die’- they kept telling us that over and over. And it never really sank in, not ‘til we were overseas.”  
“And when was that?”  
“It took a few months. They divided us into units, medical attachments and field hospitals. Most of my,” she cleared her throat, “*contemporaries* were put in as nurses, behind the lines. The more *modern* robots such as myself were put into the riskier things.” He glanced at the patches and photos scattered behind her, an ice cube toppling over a neighbor in his small glass. Black and white polaroids painted a picture of a singular, spot-cheeked nandroid standing beside three human companions.  
“That when you got assigned to the 1st?” She glanced behind her, a glow of pride touching her cheeks when she turned to where he was pointing.  
“Good eye, kid. 1st Air Cavalry, 15th Medical Battalion and that whole deal. *Dustoff*.” She was doubly proud of that title. The helicopter she and her trio of partners stood in front of was emblazoned with a broad, dark cross on a white field. “Nandroids were especially favored for that kind of work. Tweaked enough we’re adaptable and quick-thinking, much better for evacuation care than sitting in hospitals fluffing pillows. So when I finished basic and they slapped me in a plane, that’s what I was sent off to do.”


	6. Are You Experienced

youtu.be/XxHS9lTUN4Y - (Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced?)

The narrow robot stood in a block with a menagerie of other domestic machines, as many like her as were new, unfamiliar, *not Sterling*. A tired-eyed bureaucrat paraded past the assorted nandroids and maidbots, handing over assignments and where and when to report for the flight out of country and overseas. A smattering of privates followed with him to direct the simpler machines to their places.   
“Willow, Whitney,” the man called. The nandroid hopped up, smiling and taking her paper in hand. She was still unused to having a surname attached to her, the clericality of it all a bit much at times. She figured she’d be a number like in the factory, but evidently the Army was slow on the uptake.  
“Thank you, sir,” she beamed. The man blinked before continuing down the line. Poring over the curt dispatch she couldn’t help but smile, the idea of leaving to serve the country overwhelming her senses, cheeks glaring red. Departing for an off corner of the post she showed her papers to them, a brief processing her last stop.  
“Just gotta do some diagnostics there,” the engineer started, checking his paper, “Yep... Willow, all good. Just gotta make sure you're in shape, and then you’ll wake up in sunny Vietnam!”  
“I’m excited!”  
“I bet you are,” he smiled, lifting each of her arms in turn. “Yep, perfect! Just a bit more.” Fiddling in her backplate he hummed in approval, tuning her mechanics subtly. The robot peeped in turn at the disturbance. With a handful more adjustments she was ready to go.  
“All done?”  
“All done. Now I’m gonna shut you off, and by the time you wake up you’ll be across the ocean!” The young man’s sunny demeanor did a lot to soothe the robot, a click of a button sending her into a gentle, swallowing slumber. She dreamt of her kids back home and the myriad memories flashing in her head of them, broken by a grim reminder of the somber farewells she left them with. That and the most recent blip of her destination across the Pacific, the robot dreamily playing with the pronunciation in her head. Da Nang, Da Nang, Da Nang, each time something new. She figured someone would explain it to her on her arrival, some equally-cheerful welcoming party pulling her into the country’s tropical embrace with a smile.

“So they packed you in a box and shipped you?”  
“Yep. From Texas back to the West Coast,” she paused, retracing her exact route. “And I think it was to Alaska, Japan, then Da Nang. Still wasn’t awake for any of that, though.”   
“Must’ve been strange waking up in the middle of nowhere, Asia.”  
“Well... not really! It was new, and that overpowered the strangeness I think. For an hour or so, at least.”

The slim helicopter whipped over the dense canopy, a singular wooden crate sitting at the feet of the other handful of men, air-bound towards an isolated patch of dirt that’d be home for the coming months. Throwing up clouds of crumbled soil the helicopter set down, its passengers disembarking and carrying the cargo off to be processed, again. Hustling the crate to the small complex of command tents with its attached paperwork the handful of new grunts left to amble around the compound, ears bombarded with by painful thwop of scurrying overhead helicopters and the dusty winds they produced.   
“What’ve we got Arthur,” a grim man asked. He stepped away from the radio, leaving one of the dispatchers to man the handset.   
“Shipment from Texas for the dustoff crews. A.S. assignment, nandroid.”  
“They put a nandroid here? I thought AS was noncombat?”  
“Not for them, sir, they’re fit for this.”  
“I’d like to see that be true for once. Crack her open I guess, get her over to Reyes.”  
“Right away, sir.” Hefting the box up on a dolley he wheeled through the camp, the droning clap of helicopter blades timing his steps. Popping the flap on another tent he rolled the box in.  
“Reyes, we got a bot now.”  
“Sterling, Atlas, Sirius…,” the other trailed off, fussing with a radio backpack.  
“Uhhh,” he checked the sticker, stopping. “Sterling looks like.”  
“Good, easier to charge.”  
“I’ll leave her in your hands, sir.”  
“Yep,” he stopped, still fiddling with the radio. The private sniffed, waiting. “Oh, uh, dismissed.” Marching off the man was left with the standing crate, teetering on its bottom. Hopping past it he grabbed a prybar, laying the box down to set to work. Wedging the lid off he was met by a lithe little robot in a set of overlarge fatigues, deep green marred by specks of sawdust where they dotted her chest and stuck in her hair. Hefting her up in his arms he noticed the regulation foot-mods, a wise choice for the terrain. A patch on her shoulder and a pin on her chest was the rest, evidently ‘Willow, Whitney’ was bound for the medevac helicopters. With the click of a button she sat up, eyes blinking and arms stretching in programmed waking, in her box.  
“Hello,” she peeped. “I assume I’m in Da Nang, Vietnam?” She pulled herself out of the box, shavings holding for the ride as she stepped out.  
“Uhh, hello. I’m Specialist Reyes, I work on the robots in camp. And no, you already passed Da Nang looks like.” The robot snapped a curt salute to the man, throwing him back. “Well, uh, I guess I should make sure you’re set to go.”  
“Oh, well, I was taken care of in Texas,” she explained, listing off her posting proudly and throwing in some snippets of her training.   
“So you were, huh. Normally that’s my job over here. Weird… Anyways! Turn around please.”  
“Yes, sir!” Whirling about the man flipped her backplate off, the nandroid chirping in surprise. “Everything alright, sir?”  
“Yeah, yeah, just a second.” The nandroid giggled at his working, wires thrust aside and reconnected where they were needed, a zap running up her spine. “All done,” he sighed, clipping her dorsal plate back into place, the robot suddenly a few pounds heavier.  
“Everything alright?”  
“Peachy. Out here you can’t plug in so that radio battery will hold you for a while enough. Couple of days I think, we get enough to keep you running,” he grunted, rising from the ground and dusting his hands off. “Hopefully.”  
“Huh?”  
“Well, off you go, across camp are the medevacs. That’s where you’ll be.”  
“O-Okay,” the nandroid stuttered, hopping out of the tent on her own. There was a buzzing in her core, an otherworldly giddiness as she took in the steaming world around her. It was gracefully quiet for a second, the robot soaking in the foreign land surrounding her. Marching gleefully over to the opposite end of the clearing the smile drained from her face, the deepening awareness of the squalor of the country, the sickeningly agrarian stench that hung in the air, the shavings still holding to her too much to process. Home was gone, a million miles removed and an ocean away on top of that. With a deep breath she continued her marching, resolute not to let the Willows down. Tromping over towards the resting helipads, more square patches of air-blasted earth than anything else, she scanned for her destination. Pausing, confused, she realized she’d never been outright told who she’d be with. She was just a replacement, no direction.  
“Hey, Robot!” A voice shouted to her from one of the huts near the perimeter. “You’re with us!” Twisting her head she spied a trio of men sitting around near one of the rudimentary shelters, the youngest among them waving eagerly. Hopping up and scrambling over to them she greeted the three with a sharp salute.  
“Howdy,” the one drawled. “You're Jacobson’s replacement.”  
“Sir, I believe so, sir.” He sighed.  
“‘Course it had to be us,” he muttered. “Awright, welp, I’m Captain Dawes, pilot.”  
“Second Lieutenant Meyers, copilot.”  
“Specialist Vasquez, crew chief.” The tired triplette stared back at her, the robot peeping in surprise.   
“Ope,” she paused to clear her throat, ready to present her well-practiced lines. “Specialist Whitney Willow, *flight medic*.”  
“Alright, Willow it is,” the pilot sniffed. He scratched at his short, brown hair, not sure how best to approach this. “I’ll put it simply, they teach you how to do your job? Give you any proper experience?”  
“Yes, sir! My training on-post was extensive, and very educational! I can assure you I’m ready for duty, wholeheartedly. So, er, what will that be? When?” His eyes narrowed at her, mouth weaseling for words.   
“Whenever,” the crew chief piped up. He sniffed at a cigarette, curls of smoke caught in his dense black moustache. “There’ll be an alarm and we’ll get the call to go. Could be anytime.”  
“We’ve enough time to get you situated though,” the third laughed. His gentle blue eyes warmed the nandroid, sandy-blonde hair like her own fluttering in the odd current from a distant, landing Huey. “Today hasn’t been busy, not much activity of our own or from Charlie.” Charlie. That moniker was familiar to her, Mister Willow having picked it up from TV broadcasters who in turn pulled it from the soldiers they prodded at. He, Charlie, was the enemy, unseen and cunning. He’d be the one causing trouble for her and these three men, she knew, and she’d do her darnedest to stop him.  
“I think I’m situated enough, yes.”  
“You’ve been to the quartermaster,” Dawes interrupted.  
“O-Oh. No, sir.”  
“Awright, er… Meyers, you’ve got her.”  
“Right away, cap.” The young man hopped up from his place, guiding the robot by the shoulder after him. Pointing out the major attractions on post he walked her to be outfitted with the random accoutrements she hadn’t been offered initially. Webbing, a flakjacket, the all-important flight helmet and more. Arms full of new belongings to join the meager bag of her personal effects, Whitney hauled her stuff to her new home.  
“So where will I be… ‘sleeping’, I suppose?”  
“This is it,” he grinned. "Hooch sweet hooch."   
"Hooch?" She'd never heard that word before. It was vulgar, dirty. No way she’d be sleeping here, she figured.  
“You gettin’ squeamish on us robot,” the captain hollered, laughing. “I know it ain’t like your fancy owner’s *mansion* but this is it. Just be glad we didn’t get called today, gives you some time to adjust.”  
“Adjust,” she reminded herself, nodding firmly. “Time to adjust.” Just like visiting Louisiana this would be *weird*, but nothing she couldn’t handle. A year was a far cry from a week’s stay in the deep south, but she could handle it. She’d be home in no time, she knew, already eagerly pinning up the odd photo to the ramshackle walls of her bunk. And tomorrow, she smiled, she’d be doing the work she was sent to do, helping people like she’d been trained.


	7. High Flying Bird

https://youtu.be/LL1vGiRYlbA (Jefferson Airplane - High Flying Bird)

“And that was my first day in Vietnam. Pretty underwhelming all things considered, no action stories for you.”  
“I mean, first day of three years.”  
“Right, but I didn’t know that at that point. Wouldn’t for months, really.”  
“What were those first days like, really? You make it sound alien, out there, but being a machine you adapt quick. At least I assume, sorry.”  
“No, no- you’re right. Sterling had been cooking up adjustments to nandroid programming for a while, to be more adaptable and better handle stress.”  
“And they wanted to field test it in war?”  
“No, no, of course not. They’d been testing it for a while, to my knowledge, it’s just they slapped it into robots going overseas anyways. Good way to win some favor, for tax purposes.”  
“They didn’t get off without it?”  
“Well, no. I mean, saying that people who *bought* your product were contributing them to the war effort isn’t enough. Slap something in to make them useful to that effort and you have a case.”  
“Huh. They didn’t think to just send robots out the plant?”  
“Never, awful idea. Around this point you’ve got the first handfuls of hippies, the bonafide ones, hopping around outside Dow plants and causing a stir. Sterling was always careful about their image so they were slow- conniving, really- about this kind of stuff. A small change in parameters for robots being shipped out was quiet and, frankly, unassailable.”  
“Sneaky.”  
“Very sneaky,” she sniffed. She’d found a spare pack further down the bar to puff at while she spoke. Topping off the handful of daytime spectators in the bar she returned to her spot facing the young man. “But that’s how a lot of companies operated back then.”  
“Can’t say much has changed,” he chuckled, the robot joining him. The spinning cassette in front of him locked in place, buttons clicking into place loudly. Pausing her with a finger he fished for a marker, labeling the tape and swapping it with a blank.   
“All good?”  
“Yeah, sorry- continue.”  
“So, Vietnam. I mean the country itself was, for a bit, magical? I dunno if that’s the right way to put it.”  
“It was different, obviously.”  
“Yeah, right, but different in a way that was entertaining for the first few weeks.”  
“Were those weeks not busy at all?”  
“Busy, but lucky.” She paused, sighing- wrong words. “Lucky in the sense I wasn’t seeing what things were really like, and that’s something that Dawes was hellbent on reminding me of. The other two were a lot quieter about things.”  
“Did that luck hold out?”  
“Do you think,” she spat. “Three years in country. Can’t stay blind forever.”  
“Sorry,” the young man retreated.  
“No, no, you’re alright. It was *unlucky* because I wasn’t getting the experience I needed to do my job. Training can only take you so far.” There was an itch of regret on her face, face twitching and retreating again to the glowing stick hanging in her fingers.   
“So if you didn’t get any, er, *hard* experience, what were you doing with the dustoff crews then?”  
“I never said we weren’t on calls, just… just what we were getting called in for wasn’t what you’d think, and definitely wasn’t what the others were expecting.”  
“I’m sorry, but I don’t follow.” She pressed her hands against each other, cigarette squeezed in her steepled fingers. The robot churned in thought for words, eyes picking up a touch as the sun crested downwards outside.  
“Rabies.”  
“Huh?”  
“One of my first calls was for rabies. A patrol found a set of bunkers and the tunnel… *rat*,” she frowned, not a fan of the term, “got a bat in the face. Not some VC clubbing him, but a bat, the actual animal, flew into him. It was really a regular day.”

Whitney flicked at her nose, her few days in country enough to already dull her itching nose to most of the new smells. Most of them. Her mornings were spent doing her best to tidy the men’s hooch to their mild annoyance, the nandroid sweeping up card games and affectionately named rodents out into the barren earth above them. Dawes made a point of reminding her each morning that things were slow and nothing like “normal”, whatever normal would end up meaning across the world from San Francisco. Beyond anything extreme most of her time was with Meyers, the chipper young man touring her around some of the more secluded spaces on post, teaching her the workings of their helicopter and its space while Vasquez tinkered at it. The pilot was by and large absent from their activities, making sure to keep a wary eye on the robot for when she finally went into proper action.  
“Yo, Willow,” Vasquez shot, hand squeezing in the air.   
“Ope!” Handing a spanner to the man the maid kept her attention solely on him as he demonstrated some of the simpler mechanics on the bird, latches for litters, harnesses and how to wear them, where crucial first-aid supplies were kept; all details snubbed during her training, figuring she’d never need it.  
“Alf, coffee.” The blonde copilot sauntered over with a steaming mess cup, handing it to the enthralled specialist.  
“Ah, thanks.” A swig there and he set back to work giving the helicopter a once-over, proud of the prim shape he’d pulled her back into.  
“Alf?”  
“Alfonso,” he sneered, the copilot snickering. “But Vasquez is just fine. You’ve been here a week. Not exactly first name basis.”  
“Lighten up man,” the other smirked, sandy hair stirred in the breeze, “haven’t even seen her in action.” Whitney blushed at the implication, that they’d yet to see her realize some potential even she didn’t know she had. To them she’d been a robotic burden more than anything, too unfamiliar and unsure to be of much help outside of handing things to people and tidying their space.  
“Well I can assure you-,” she started, cut off by a snapping klaxon and the whipping to attention of the two men besides her.   
“Let’s move Willow,” the copilot shouted, patting her back and yanking her up. The robot froze in panic, the man yanking her after him to their hooch again. Forcing her other things into her arms he pulled her back to the helicopter, Dawes appearing from his den helmet on and hopping into the cockpit. The pilot was already chattering away at the radio, Vasquez prepping litters in the hold.   
“Cool it back there Alf, it’s a nothing.”  
“Copy.”  
“A nothing,” the robot hollered through the growing whine and clap of the helicopter’s rotors.  
“A small call!” The copilot craned his head to the side, shouting back. “Means no-one’s hurt bad, just protocol.”   
“O-Oh!” Relieved, Whitney slackened her shoulders and hunkered down for the ride, her first in a helicopter. The swooping and jittering of the shaky craft rocked her all the way to their destination, a plume of smoke rising from a small meadow surrounded by canopy. Thumping to the ground Whitney sat idle in her spot, waiting for instruction.  
“Move, Willow,” the crew chief shouted. Hopping up the robot dismounted to meet the gathered men huddling around the helicopter, the singular patient jogging up along with her.   
“A-Are you alright,” she sputtered, not sure how to begin this. Hobbling past her into the waiting Huey he plopped himself in a seat, the nandroid jumping after him back inside. Questioning him he half-ignored her, the realization setting in once after dust off that she’d be tending to him.  
“I asked what the problem is, sir,” she snipped, new protocols clipping gently into place in the mild tension of their sprint over the treetops.  
“A bat flew into my face,” the young man groaned, rolling his eyes. He was clearly less than enthused about being sent back over something so minor. “Say it’s a health hazard but- hey!” With no hesitation Whitney set to swabbing his face down and clean, a smear of disinfectant to top it off.  
“There! That’s the extent of care I can offer you,” she smiled. That was a new line; it was instinctual and comforting, but painfully sterile. Proffering a hand she looked into the man’s eyes. “Are you doing alright?”  
“I’m fine, feckin’ machine. Rather be back in the jungle.” Grumbling the whole way back, slapped into the passenger seat of a jeep, the soldier was rushed off to be tested for anything foreign or dangerous, likely to be back in his bunk in a day or so. Settling back down into the dampening earth beneath it the helicopter spilled its crew out, the three languishing around before returning to their home. Willow sat at the ready beside it, awaiting any further orders, the shout for sleep calling her back to the sickening hut that was home. Tomorrow she’d probably need a new battery, but that aside there was nothing ahead, just a new memory to run through in her sleep.

“So that’s how evacuations were. My first one was nothing, kid was fine. Probably.”  
“Probably?”  
“Not like we get a letter saying what happened to them, could you imagine?”  
“You’re right, jeez.” The kid cursed himself again, wiping his glasses down in his shirt. The reel between them glided silently around and around, pressing dead air to the tape in the drift. “So, uh, if that was nothing for them, when did the… ‘somethings’ come?” The robot stared past him, time slipping around in her head like some scumming broth. Scraping out her first month overseas and defatting into the recorder she explained the lessening intensity of things in January.  
“According to the other three, January was quieter than any month before.”  
“And then what happened? Obviously things weren’t quiet forever.”  
“Tet happened.”


End file.
